Category Archives: Molly Thomson and Franziska Reinbothe

Molly Thomson and Franziska Reinbothe

28. October.2023 – 11. November.2023 Preview Thursday 26.10.2023

Molly Thomson

Molly Thomson, Slot and block Medium: Acrylic on panel construction Size: 42 x 40 x 10 cm 2023

My conversation is with the object of the painting and with its hybrid identities. Beginning most often with the simple fact of the rectangular painting panel I place myself in the position of both agent and observer, using acts of cutting, reassembling and pouring to re-form – and respond to – each piece. I am interested not only in the layered facade that is presented, but also in the fact that the painting casts and contains shadows. There is always a delicate balance between control and the unpredictable behaviour of the object, and the process advances by slow increments, mis-steps and revisions. Occasionally work descends from the wall and demands space or even mobility. There is play and sometimes there is humour.

Current work continues to evolve through the setting of a series of problems and displacements in each structure. Interior spaces are often implicated, even if only glimpsed through the smallest of openings, and I am interested in the quiet question that such breaks in the facade might pose. Some paintings may quietly allude to what cannot or shouldn’t be seen, while others flex their joints or extend their surfaces with a touch more expansiveness. Often it can seem to me that order is provisional – something to be tampered with.

Molly Thomson, Red, with opening Medium: Acrylic on panel construction Size: 37 x 46 x 5 cm 2022
Molly Thomson, Cavity Medium: Acrylic on panel construction Size: 34 x 23 x 5 cm 2023

Franziska Reinbothe

Franziska Reinbothe, Fächer,2023, ca.90x50x12 cm, acrylic on canvas

In painting, I am interested in what usually remains hidden: the back of a picture and its edges. In order to make them visible, I compress canvases, expose stretcher frames or do without them altogether. I stretch, fold, break, cut through and/or sew up my paintings after the painting process is complete. Some of them then protrude far into the room, others have already completely detached themselves from the wall.

Curiosity and impulsiveness, not iconoclasm, are my driving forces – and chance and accident lie close together in my artistic work.

I do not work project-based, but continuously in the process. In doing so, I trust in the making, instead of making decisions that restrict me in advance. What happens if I break the strips of the painting? And what if I subsequently repair them? And what will the picture look like if I use transparent chiffon fabric instead of paint, for example? No matter which of the previous and upcoming image-finding strategies I use: It is always about contemporary painting, its means and possibilities.

Franziska Reinbothe, n.T. 2019/22, ca 62x44x10 cm, acrylic on canvas
Franziska Reinbothe, n.T., 2015/22, ca. 93x72x20 cm, ball pen, spray paint and acrylic on canvas

opening times Saturday 14-18 and by appointment